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Fielded Search 		Search Tips Search Results Technical Requirements



Basic Search

Enter your search term (s) in the search box and your search will be conducted on all indexed fields, including full text if available.

Fielded Search

Sorting

Your search results will be sorted in ascending or descending order based on your 'Sort By' selection. The default is Relevance descending.

Term Searching

Enter your search criteria into at least one field, and into as many additional fields as desired. Field choices are:
  1. Patent Number
  2. Patent Title
  3. Publication Date
  4. Patent Application Number
  5. Inventor(s)
  6. Lab/Technology Center
  7. Sponsoring Office
  8. Contract Number
  9. Subject Categories
  10. Assignee
  11. Abstract


To search by Date:

  1. Enter the beginning date (From) and ending date (To) of your selected date range in the spaces provided.
  2. Enter a 2 digit day (DD), a 2 digit month(MM), and a 4 digit year (YYYY).

Author Select

  1. Assists in identifying variation(s) of an author's name
  2. Can be used to identify multiple authors
  3. Selected author(s) are 'submitted' to Fielded Search

Subject Select

  1. Assists in identifying terms for subject searches
  2. Controlled vocabulary is in a hierarchical structure
  3. Selected term(s) are 'submitted' to Fielded Search

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Search Tips

General

  1. Patent Numbers should be entered without punctuation.  Enter 4004973, not 4,004,973.
  2. Searching for individual terms does not require a special syntax. For example, a search for DOG will return all results that contain the term DOG.
  3. Multiple words entered as search terms must all be contained in the field(s) searched in order to be returned in the search results. For example, a search on DOG CAT will find results that contain both DOG and CAT.
  4. Special term prefix syntax, used by some search engines such as Alta Vista, is not supported. For example, searching on +DOG -CAT will only return results that contain both +DOG and -CAT. Neither of these terms is likely to occur.

Case Sensitivity

Search terms are case insensitive. A term entered in either upper case, lower case, or mixed case will find/match terms that are in the bibliographic citation and/or the full text in upper case, lower case, and/or mixed case.

Number Searching

  1. For bibliographic citation fields, the best search results can be obtained by entering numbers without any punctuation or spaces. Enter only alpha-numeric characters.
  2. Numbers are not specifically indexed/available for searches in the full text. Although some numbers may be searchable if they are surrounded by delimiters such as parenthesis, full text searching for numbers is not recommended.

Wildcard Operators

  1. The asterisk (*) is used as a multi-character wildcard for term expansion.
    1. A search for NUCLE* will return results that contain terms such as NUCLEAR, NUCLEUS, NUCLEOPROTEIN. Term expansion using the multi-character wildcard is limited, and will result in a search error if the term is too vague (an expansion error). Vagueness depends on the density of the known portion of the word (NUCLE in this example). If a search results in an expansion error, more characters will be required in order to more uniquely identify the desired terms. For example, a search on N* will likely result in a term expansion error.
    2. An asterisk may be used inside a string of characters. For example, a search for H*GENOUS will return results that contain terms such as HOMOGENOUS and HETEROGENEOUS.
    3. Asterisks may not be used as the beginning of a term. For example, a search for *ETERGENOUS will result in an error.
  2. The question mark (?) is used as a single-character wildcard for term expansion.
    1. A search for DO? will return results that contain terms such as DO, DOG, DOT, DOE, DOI.
    2. If a search results in an expansion error, more characters will be required in order to more uniquely identify the desired terms. For example, a search for T? will likely result in a term expansion error because a large number of terms or words start with the letter T.
    3. A question mark may be used inside a string of characters. For example, a search for C?T will return results that contain terms such as CAT, COT, CPT.
    4. More than one single-character wildcard may be used in the same search. However, this may cause a slower return of the results than searching with only one single-character wildcard.
    5. Question marks may not be used as the beginning of a term. For example, a search for ?ETERGENOUS will result in an error.

Phrase/Adjacent Terms

  1. Phrases (adjacent terms) can be searched for by using double quotes. For example, a search for "BIG EXPLOSION" will return results that contain the term BIG immediately followed by the term EXPLOSION.
  2. When the Boolean operator NEAR is within a phrase search (using double quotes), it will be treated as a search for the term NEAR and will not act as a Boolean operator. For example, a search for "DOG NEAR CAT" will find results that contain the phrase "DOG NEAR CAT".
  3. Wildcard operators inside a phrase will operate as wildcards. For example, a search on "CIRCUS TRAIN*" will return results that contain phrases such as "circus train", "circus training", "circus trainers".
  4. Phrases can be joined together using Boolean Operators. For example, a search for "DOG HOUSE" OR "DOG RESIDENCE" will return results that contain either the phrase "DOG HOUSE" or the phrase "DOG RESIDENCE".

Boolean

  1. If you receive an error message related to Boolean searching, please check your use of operators, parenthesis and/or quotation marks.
  2. Operators (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR)
    1. Searches for DOG AND CAT will return results that contain both DOG and CAT. Searches using the Boolean operator AND must have two conditions on which to operate. Therefore a search for AND CAT will return results that contain only CAT (the word AND is not indexed).
    2. Multiple words entered as search terms without a Boolean Operator must all be contained in the field(s) searched in order to be returned in the search results. In other words, an implicit AND is added between each term. For example, a search on the 'Title' for DOG CAT will return results that contain both DOG and CAT in the title. It is not necessary for the terms to be adjacent.
    3. Searches for DOG OR CAT will return results containing either DOG or CAT. Searches using the Boolean operator OR must have two conditions on which to operate. Therefore a search for OR CAT will return results that contain only CAT (the word OR is not indexed).
    4. Searches for DOG NOT CAT will return results that contain DOG and do not contain CAT. Searches using the Boolean operator NOT must have two conditions on which to operate. Therefore a search for NOT CAT will return results that contain only CAT (the word NOT is not indexed).
    5. Searches for DOG NEAR CAT will return results that contain both DOG and CAT. However, the relevance is increased for results where the two terms are closer together. Searches using the Boolean operator NEAR must have two conditions on which to operate. A search for NEAR CAT will return results that contain only CAT because the word NEAR is a Boolean Operator.
  3. Order of Operation
    1. The default order of operations (precedence) for all supported Boolean Operators is NEAR, NOT, AND, OR.
    2. Unless overridden by use of parenthesis, the default order of operations will be used. Expressions are evaluated in order from left to right according to the precedence of their operators (or order of operation). Operators with higher precedence are applied first. Operators of equal precedence, i.e. the same operator used more than once, are applied in order of their appearance in the expression from left to right.
    3. A search for DOG NOT CAT OR MOUSE will return results that either
      1. contain the term DOG and do not contain the term CAT or
      2. that contain the term MOUSE.
      This can be demonstrated by adding parentheses in the example (DOG NOT CAT) OR MOUSE to show the order of precedence. Since NOT has a higher order (precedence), its expression is evaluated first.
    4. A search for DOG NOT (CAT OR MOUSE) will return results that contain DOG and do not contain either CAT nor MOUSE. This is an example of overriding the default order of operations by using parenthesis.

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Search Results

Results

  1. The Search Results page provides you with information about your search, including your search strategy, your sort choice, an approximate number of results, and the number of results pages.
  2. From your Search Results page you can:
    1. Re-sort the search results
    2. Refine your search
    3. Navigate from your current Search Results page to other Search Results pages
    4. Select results of interest by checking the box in front of each result and clicking on 'Show only (√) Items' (see Using the Check Box).
  3. Clicking on column titles will resort by that field.  For example, clicking on Inventor(s) will resort your results alphabetically by inventor name(s). 
  4. Each title displayed is hyperlinked to the full Bibliographic Citation.
  5. Each author is hyperlinked so that, when selected, a search is conducted for the selected author. The author search is the same as if you had conducted a phrased search on Creator/Author from Fielded Search. For example, if you select the 'Smith, John' hyperlink, it will provide you with the same search results as when you conduct a Fielded Search on Creator/Author for "Smith, John".
  6. Full-text availability is show in the last column.  Format possibilities are PDF or HTML, and will be indicates with the appropriate icon.
  7. The default number of results per page is 25.

Using the Check Box

  1. Items selected via the selectable check box will be retained during your browser session. These checked items will persist until you choose to clear all previously selected items. This will allow you to perform multiple searches using different criteria and have all selected items retained in a single list.
  2. You may choose to clear all previously selected items.
  3. You may choose to remove single items from your list by deselecting the Check Box.
  4. You may choose to view your list of selected results on the Search Results by clicking on 'Show only (√) Items'.

Technical Requirements

  1. For complete functionality, you must have a recent version of a major Web browser (e.g. Netscape, FireFox, Microsoft Internet Explorer) and related software.
  2. In order to function correctly on your computer, required browser configurations include:
    1. JavaScript must be enabled
    2. Style sheets must be supported. The application is optimized for W3C's CSS Level 2.
    3. Cookies must be accepted (uses session cookies).
    4. To display full text, a PDF Viewer [exit federal site] and unzip utility (such as WinZip for windows) are suggested. The PDF viewer should be loaded as a plug-in to view individual pages in PDF format.

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